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"^OJITO-JO^         %UDN¥SOV^      ^ 


We  have  done  with  the  kisses  that  sting, 
The  thief's  mouth  red  from  the  feast, 
The  blood  on  the  hands  of  the  king, 
And  the  lie  at  the  lips  of  the  priest. 

— Swinburne 


Is  the  Morality  of  Jesus 
Sound? 


A  Lecture  Delivered  Before 
the  Independent  Religious 
Society,  Orcheitra  Hal!, 
Chicago,  Sunday,  at  1 1  A.  M. 


By 
M.  M.  MANGASARIAN 


7  make  war  against  this  theological  instinct: 
I  have  found  traces  of  it  everywhere.  Whoever 
has  theological  blood  in  his  veins  is,  from  the 
very  beginning,  ambiguous  and  disloyal  with 

respect  to  everything 7  have  digged  out 

the  thcologist  instinct  everywhere;  it  is  the  most 
diffused,  the  most  peculiarly  SUBTERRANEAN 
form  of  falsity  that  exists  on  earth.  What  a 
theologian  feels  as  true,  MUST  needs  be  false: 
one  has  therein  almost  a  criterion  of  truth. 

— Nietzsche. 


StacR 

Ann6x< 


Is  the  flDoral  teaching  of 
Sounb? 


A  great  deal  depends  upon  the  answer  to  the  question,  "Is 
the  moral  teaching  of  Jesus  sound?"  This  question  brings  us 
to  the  inner  and  most  closely  guarded  citadel  of  Christianity. 
If  it  can  be  captured,  the  rout  of  supernaturalism  will  be  com- 
plete ;  but  as  long  as  it  stands,  Christianity  can  afford  to  lose 
every  one  of  its  outer  fortifications,  and  still  be  the  victor. 
Reason  may  drive  supernaturalism  out  of  the  Catholic  position 
into  the  Protestant,  and  out  of  that,  into  the  Unitarian,  and 
out  of  that  again  into  Liberalism,  but  reason  does  not  become 
master  of  the  field  until  it  has  stormed  and  razed  to  the  ground 
this  last  and  greatest  of  all  the  strongholds — the  morality  of 
Christianity. 

If  Jesus  was  the  author  of  perfect  or  even  the  highest 
ideals  the  world  has  ever  cherished,  he  will,  and  must,  remain 
the  saviour,  par  excellence,  of  the  world.  Whether  he  was 
man  or  God,  which  question  Unitarianism  discusses,  is  a 
trifling  matter.  If  his  ethical  teaching  is  practically  without 
a  flaw,  I  would  gladly  call  him  God,  and  more,  if  such  a  thing 
were  possible.  His  walking  on  the  water,  or  his  raising  the 
dead,  or  his  flying  through  the  air,  would  not  in  the  least 
embarrass  me.  I  could  accept  them  all — if  he  rose  morally 
head  and  shoulders  above  every  other  mortal  or  immortal, 
our  world  has  ever  produced.  It  is  claimed  that  he  did.  What 
is  the  evidence? 

To  facilitate  this  discussion,  and  to  concentrate  all  our 
attention  on  the  subject  of  this  discourse,  we  will  waive  the 
question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  For  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, we  will  accept  the  gospels  as  history — accept  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  documents,  the  trustworthiness  of  the  witnesses, 
and  the  inspiration  of  the  texts  which  we  are  to  quote.  We 

3 


will  grant  every  point;  concede  every  claim,  allow  every  con- 
tention of  the  defendants.  We  will  then  say  to  them:  Does 
the  evidence  which  you  have  presented  and  we  have  accepted 
without  raising  any  objections,  prove  that  the  moral  teaching 
of  Jesus  is  perfect,  or  even  the  highest  the  world  has  ever 
possessed  ? 

A  system  of  thought,  or  a  code  of  morals,  is  much  like  a 
building.  A  serious  crack  in  one  of  the  walls,  or  a  post  that 
is  not  secure  in  its  socket,  is  enough  to  make  the  whole  build- 
ing unsafe.  When  a  building  is  condemned,  it  is  not  con- 
demned for  the  parts  that  are  sound,  but  for  the  part  or  parts 
that  are  unsound.  To  change  my  illustration,  the  strength  of 
a  chain  is  in  its  weakest  link.  So  is  the  strength  of  a  religion 
in  its  most  vulnerable  parts.  By  overlooking  the  weakness 
and  dwelling  solely  upon  the  strong  points,  we  could  make  any 
religion  appear  as  the  best  in  the  world ;  as  a  similar  bias 
would  prove  the  most  rickety  building  even  perfectly  safe.  A 
lawyer,  an  advocate,  or  special  pleader,  may  conceal,  or  cover 
up  the  cracks  in  the  walls  of  a  building,  or  the  defects  of  an 
institution.  But  why  should  I?  My  object  is  not  to  save  the 
building,  but  the  people  who  are  in  it.  I  am  not  interested  in 
saving  the  creed  or  the  religion,  but  the  people  who  stake  their 
lives  on  it.  I  am  not  trying  to  earn  my  fee,  I  am  trying  to 
serve  the  people.  Why  should  I,  then,  be  expected  to  spread 
the  mantle  of  charity  over  a  building  that  deserves  to  be  con- 
demned, or  plead  for  a  religion  that  blocks  the  path  of  advance- 
ment? And  why, — why  should  any  religion  beg  for  charity? 
To  a  cashier  of  a  bank,  to  a  treasurer  of  a  corporation,  to  an 
official  of  the  municipality  or  the  state,  who  should  beg  the 
examining  committee  not  to  look  into  all  his  dealings,  but 
only  to  report  what  good  they  can  of  him,  we  say:  "You  are 
guilty."  Not  only  that,  but  he  is  also  trying  to  make  us  his 
accomplices. 

Lawyer-like,  preachers  often  tell  their  hearers  to  see  only 
the  good  in  the  bible,  for  instance.  "When  you  are  eating 
fish,"  they  say,  "you  eat  the  meat  and  throw  away  the  bones. 
Do  the  same  with  the  bible."  "But  why  should  anything  in  the 
bible  be  meant  to  be  thrown  away?  Pardon  me  if  I  use  a 
stronger  expression — why  should  any  part  of  the  Word  of 
God  be  destined  for  the  garbage  box? 
4 


It  is  a  pleasure,  and  it  confirms  us  in  our  optimism,  to  admit 
that  in  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  even  in  the  crudest,  there 
is  much  that  is  good,  as  in  every  structure  or  dwelling  there 
are  rooms  and  walls  and  posts  that  are  perfectly  sound. 
Religions  live,  as  buildings  endure, — by  the  soundness  there 
is  in  them.  It  is  not  the  cracked  wall  or  damaged  pillar  which 
supports  the  building — it  is  the  sound  parts  that  keep  it  to- 
gether. The  same  is  true  of  religions.  It  is  the  truths  they 
contain  that  preserve  them.  Mohammedanism,  for  instance, 
has  survived  for  nearly  fifteen  centuries,  and  its  survival  is 
due  to  the  virtues  and  not  to  the  vices  of  the  Mohammedan 
faith.  This  is  equally  true  of  Judaism  and  Christianity.  If 
human  Society  has  survived  for  these  many  centuries,  it  is 
because,  imperfect  as  it  is,  there  is  enough  of  justice  and  honor 
among  men  to  keep  it  from  disintegration.  But  is  that  any 
reason  why  we  should  be  content  with  what  little  justice  or 
truth  there  is  in  the  world,  and  not  strive  for  more?  And 
shall  we  hold  our  tongues  on  the  terrible  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion all  around  us  simply  because  there  is  also  goodness  and 
virtue  among  men?  Simply  because  the  human  race  keeps 
going  as  it  is,  shall  we  not  endeavor  to  improve  it?  And  be- 
cause there  is  some  good  in  all  religions,  shall  we  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  dangerous  fallacies  they  contain?  Is  it  not  our 
duty  as  well  as  our  privilege  to  labor  for  a  more  rational  and 
a  more  ennobling  faith? 

In  the  teachings  attributed  to  Jesus,  whose  nativity  is 
celebrated  to-day  (*)  in  Europe  and  America,  there  is  much 
that  we  are  in  cordial  sympathy  with.  We  can  say  the  same 
of  all  the  founders  of  religions.  If  any  one  were  to  point  out 
to  us  passages  of  beauty  in  the  four  evangels,  I  for  myself 
would  gladly  agree  to  all  that  may  be  said  in  their  praise. 
But  if  I  were  asked  to  infer  from  these  isolated  passages  that 
the  ethical  teaching  of  Jesus  is  not  only  the  most  perfect  within 
human  reach,  but  also  sufficient  to  the  needs  of  man  for  all 
time,  I  would  deem  it  a  stern  duty  to  combat  the  proposition 
with  all  the  earnestness  at  my  command.  It  would  then  be 
the  duty,  indeed,  of  every  one  to  denounce  the  attempt  to  arrest 
the  progress  of  the  world  by  holding  it  bound  to  the  thought  of 
one  man.  In  the  interest  of  morality  itself,  it  must  be  shown 
(')  Christmas  Sunday,  Dec.  26,  1909. 

5 


that  Jesus  is  not  the  highest  product  of  the  ages,  nor  is  he 
the  best  that  the  future  can  promise.  There  is  room  beyond 
Jesus.  But  not  only  was  Jesus  not  the  perfect  teacher  his 
worshippers  claim  him  to  have  been,  but  there  are  flaws  in  his 
system — cracks  and  rents  in  the  walls  of  his  temple — so  serious 
and  menacing,  that  not  to  call  attention  to  them  would  be  to 
shirk  the  most  urgent  service  we  owe  to  the  cause  of  humanity. 

My  first  general  criticism  of  the  morality  of  Jesus  is,  that 
it  lacks  universality.  It  is  not  meant  for  all  peoples  and  all 
times.  It  is  rather  the  morality  of  a  sect,  a  coterie,  or  a 
secret  society.  I  object  to  the  provincialism  of  Jesus.  Jesus 
was  not  a  cosmopolite.  He  was  a  Hebrew  before  he  was  a 
man.  If  we  find  Jerusalem  on  the  map  of  the  world  and  draw 
a  circle  around  it, — covering  the  rest  of  the  map  with  our 
hands, — we  will  then  have  before  us  all  the  world  that  Jesus 
knew  anything  about, — or  cared  for.  Little  did  he  think  of  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  continents  of  Asia,  Africa,  Australia, 
Europe,  and  the,  as  yet,  undiscovered  America,  had  no  place 
whatever  either  in  his  thought  or  affection.  The  yellow  millions 
of  China  and  Japan,  the  dusky  millions  of  Hindustan,  the 
blacks  of  Africa  with  their  galling  chains,  the  white  races  with 
the  most  pressing  problems  which  ever  taxed  the  brain  of  man 
— do  not  seem  to  have  deserved  even  a  passing  notice  from 
Jesus.  It  is  quite  evident  that  such  a  country  as  our  America, 
for  instance,  with  its  nearly  one  hundred  millions  of  people 
of  all  races  and  religions,  dwelling  under  the  same  flag,  and 
governing  themselves  without  a  King  or  a  Caesar,  never 
crossed  the  orbit  even  of  his  imagination.  Is  it  reasonable 
to  go  to  a  provincial  of  this  description  for  universal  ideals? 

What  Jesus  has  in  mind  is  not  humanity,  but  a  particular 
race.  Israel  is  the  nation  that  monopolizes  his  attention,  and 
even  in  that  nation  his  interest  is  limited  to  those  that  believe 
in  him  as  the  Messiah.  The  idea  of  a  world-salvation  was 
utterly  foreign  to  his  sympathies.  His  disciples  were  all  of 
one  race,  and  he  emphatically  warned  them  against  going  into 
the  cities  of  the  Gentiles  to  preach  the  gospel.  He  tells  them 
that  he  was  sent  expressly  and  exclusively  for  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel.  Of  course,  we  are  familiar  with  the 
"Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature,"  but  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  given  that  command- 
6 


ment  after  his  death.  In  his  life  time,  he  said,  "Go  not  into 
the  cities  and  towns  of  the  Gentiles."  If  he  said,  "Go  not, 
to  the  Gentiles !"  when  he  was  living,  the  "Go  to  the  Gentiles," 
after  his  death,  has  all  the  ear-marks  of  an  interpolation.  The 
two  statements  squarely  contradict  each  other.  Granting  that 
Jesus  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  he  could  not  have 
given  both  commandments.  Moreover,  from  the  conduct  of 
the  apostles  who  refused  to  go  to  the  Gentiles  until  Paul  came 
about, — who  had  never  seen  or  heard  Jesus, — it  may  be  con- 
cluded that  Jesus  did  not  change  his  mind  to  the  very  last  on 
the  matter  of  his  being  sent  "only  for  the  lost  children  of  the 
House  of  Israel." 

But  the  thought  of  Jesus  is  as  Hebraic  as  are  his  sympath- 
ies. His  God  is  invariably  the  "God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob."  Suppose  he  had  also  called  God,  "The  God  of  Abra- 
ham, Confucius  and  Socrates."  Ah,  if  Jesus  had  only  said 
that !  The  idea  of  the  larger  God  was  in  the  human  mind, 
but  not  in  his.  The  idea  was  in  the  air,  but  Jesus  was  not 
tall  enough  to  reach  it.  He  did  not  look  beyond  a  tribal 
Deity.  The  God  of  Jesus  was  a  Hebrew.  To  Jesus  David 
was  the  only  man  who  looked  big  in  history.  Of  Alexander, 
for  example,  who  conquered  the  world  and  made  the  Greek 
language  universal — the  language  in  which  his  own  story,  the 
story  of  Jesus,  is  written,  and  which  story,  in  all  probability 
would  never  have  come  down  to  us  but  for  the  Greek  language 
and  Alexander;  of  Socrates,  whose  daily  life  was  the  beauty 
of  Athens;  of  Aristotle,  of  whom  Goethe  said  that  he  was 
the  greatest  intellect  the  world  had  produced;  of  the  Caesars, 
who  converted  a  pirate  station  on  the  Tiber  to  an  Eternal 
City — Jesus  does  not  seem  to  have  heard  at  all — and  if  he 
had,  he  does  not  seem  to  care  for  them,  any  more  than  would 
a  Gypsy  Smith. 

The  heaven  of  Jesus  is  also  quite  Semitic.  His  twelve 
apostles  are  to  sit  upon  twelve  thrones — to  judge  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel.  There  is  no  mention  of  anybody  else  sitting 
on  a  throne,  or  of  anybody  else  in  heaven  except  Jews.  People 
will  come  from  the  east  and  the  west,  from  the  north  and  the 
south  to  meet  their  father,  Abraham,  in  heaven.  The  cosmog- 
raphy or  topography  of  the  world  to  come  is  also  Palestinian. 
It  has  as  many  gates  as  there  are  sons  of  Jacob ;  all  its 
7 


inhabitants  have  Hebrew  names ;  and  just  as  on  earth,  outside 
of  Judea,  the  whole  world  was  heathen,  in  the  next  world, 
heaven  is  where  Abraham  and  his  children  dwell ;  the  rest  is 
hell.  Indeed,  to  Jesus  heaven  meant  Abraham's  bosom.  And 
we  repeatedly  come  across  the  phrase,  "heavenly  Jerusalem"  in 
the  New  Testament,  as  the  name  of  the  abode  of  the  blessed? 
Is  it  likely  that  a  man  so  racial,  so  sectarian,  so  circumscribed 
in  his  thought  and  sympathies, — so  local  and  clannish, — could 
assume  and  fulfill  the  role  of  a  universal  teacher  ? 

But  not  only  was  the  world  of  Jesus  a  mere  speck  on  the 
map,  but  it  was  also  a  world  without  a  future.  Jesus  expected 
the  world  to  come  to  an  end  in  a  very  short  time.  And  what 
was  the  use  of  trying  to  get  acquainted  with,  or  interested  in,  a 
world  about  to  be  abandoned?  The  evidence  is  very  con- 
clusive that  Jesus  believed  the  end  of  the  world  to  be  imminent. 
He  says :  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  ye  shall  not  have  gone 
through  the  cities  of  Israel  before  the  son  of  man  come."  As 
Palestine  was  a  small  country,  and  its  few  cities  could  easily 
be  visited  in  a  short  time,  it  follows  that  Jesus  expected  the 
almost  immediate  end  of  the  world.  In  another  text  he  tells 
his  disciples  that  this  great  event  would  happen  in  the  lifetime 
of  those  who  were  listening  to  him:  "This  generation,"  he 
says,  "shall  not  pass  away,"  before  the  world  ends.  This  be- 
lief in  the  approaching  collapse  of  the  world  was  shared  by 
his  apostles.  Paul,  for  instance,  is  constantly  exhorting  Chris- 
tians to  get  ready  for  the  great  catastrophe,  and  he  describes 
how  those  still  living  will  be  transformed  when  Jesus  appears 
in  the  clouds. 

The  earliest  Christian  Society  was  communistic,  because  all 
that  they  needed  was  enough  to  subsist  upon  before  Jesus  re- 
appeared. It  would  have  been  foolish  from  their  point  of  view 
to  "lay  up  treasures  on  earth"  when  the  earth  was  soon  to  be 
burnt  up.  Moreover,  they  were  not  commanded  to  labor,  but 
to  "watch  and  pray."  The  fruits  of  labor  require  time  to  ripen 
in,  and  there  was  no  time.  The  cry  was,  "Behold  the  bride- 
groom is  at  the  door."  Hence,  to  "watch  and  pray"  was  the 
only  reasonable  occupation.  We  can  see  for  ourselves  how 
this  belief  in  the  near  end  of  the  world  would  create  a  kind 
of  morality  altogether  unsuitable  to  people  living  in  a  world 
that  does  not  come  to  an  end.  Jesus  never  dreamt  that  the 
8 


world  was  going  to  last,  for  at  least  another  two  thousand 
years.  If  anyone  had  whispered  such  a  thing  in  his  ears,  he 
would  have  gasped  for  breath.  Could  the  curtain  of  the  future 
have  been  lifted  high  enough  for  Jesus  to  have  seen  in  advance 
some  of  the  changes  that  have  come  upon  the  world  during 
the  past  twenty  centuries, — the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the 
rise  of  Mohammedanism, — carrying  two  continents  and  throw- 
ing the  third  into  a  state  of  panic, — wresting  the  very  Jerusalem 
of  Jesus  from  the  Christians  and  holding  it  for  a  thousand 
years ;  had  Jesus  been  able  to  foresee  the  Dark  Ages,  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  the  German  Reformation,  the  French  Revolution, 
the  American  Revolution  with  its  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  later  on,  its  Emancipation  Proclamation, — and  finally, 
had  Jesus  caught  even  the  most  distant  gleam  of  that  magnifi- 
cent and  majestic  Empire,  the  Empire  of  Science,  with  its 
peaceful  reign  and  bloodless  conquests,  slowly  and  serenely 
climbing  above  the  horizon,  bringing  to  man  such  a  hope  as 
had  never  before  entered  his  breast,  and  giving  him  the  stars 
for  eyes,  and  the  wind  for  wings — had  but  a  glimpse  of  all  this 
crossed  the  vision  of  this  Jerusalem  youth,  his  conception  of  a 
world  soon  to  be  smashed  would  have  appeared  to  him  as  the 
infantile  fancy  of  a — well,  what  shall  I  say? — I  shall  not  say 
of  a  fanatic,  I  shall  not  say,  of  an  illiterate, — let  me  say — of 
an  enthusiast.  The  morality  of  Jesus  not  only  lacked  univers- 
ality, but  it  was  also  framed  to  fit  a  world  under  sentence  of 
immediate  destruction. 

Jesus'  doctrine  of  a  passing  world  was  born  of  his  pessim- 
ism. The  old/  whether  in  years,  or  in  spirit,  as  Shakespeare 
says,  are  always  wishing  "that  the  estate  of  the  Sun  were  now 
undone."  Weariness  of  life  is  a  sign  of  exhaustion.  The 
strong  and  the  healthy  love  life.  The  young  are  not  pessimists. 
Jesus  had  the  disease  of  aged  and  effete  Asia.  He  was  not 
European  in  ardor  or  energy.  He  contemplated  a  passing  pan- 
orama, a  world  crashing  and  tumbling  into  ruins  all  about  him, 
with  Oriental  resignation.  The  groan  of  a  dying  world  was 
music  to  him.  He  enjoyed  the  anticipation  of  calamity.  The 
end  of  the  world  would  put  an  end  to  effort  and  endeavor, 
both  of  which  the  Asiatic  dislikes.  To  tell  people  that  the 
world  is  coming  to  an  end  soon, — today,  tomorrow,  is  not  to 
kindle,  but  to  extinguish  hope ;  and  without  hope  our  world 
9 


would  be  darker  even  than  if  the  sun  were  to  be  blotted  out  of 
the  sky. 

The  objection  against  Christianity,  as  also  against  its  parent, 
Judaism,  is  that  it  seeks  to  divert  the  attention  of  man  from 
the  work  in  hand  to  something  visionary  and  distant.  It  was 
to  direct  men's  thoughts  to  some  other  world  that  Jesus  be- 
littled this. 

What  are  you  doing,  asks  the  preacher. 

I  am  laboring  for  my  daily  bread. 

Indeed  !  Have  you  not  heard  that  Jesus  said :  "Labor  not 
for  the  meat  that  perisheth  ?" 

And  what  are  you  doing? 

We  are  building  a  city. 

What !  Do  you  not  know  that  it  is  written  in  the  Word  of 
God  that,  "Here  we  have  no  abiding  City?" 

And  you — 

I  have  married  and  have  decided  to  share  my  life  with  the 
woman  I  love. 

And  have  you  not  read  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  says  the 
preacher  again,  that  they  who  are  married  neglect  the  things 
of  the  Lord  ? 

And  you? 

We  are  laboring  to  improve  the  world  we  live  in — to  make 
it  a  little  cleaner  and  sweeter. 

But  do  you  not  know,  asks  the  man  of  God,  that  the  world 
will  soon  pass  away, — that,  as  Jesus  has  foretold,  the  sun  will 
turn  black,  the  stars  will  fall,  and  the  elements  will  be  con- 
sumed in  a  general  conflagration? 

The  effect  of  the  teaching  of  both  Judaism  and  Christianity 
is  to  incapacitate  man  for  earnest  work  now  and  here.  And 
what  do  these  religions  offer  in  place  of  the  home,  the  love, 
the  world,  which  they  take  away  from  us?  Let  us  ask  the 
priest : 

Where  then  is  our  home? 

Yonder! — and  he  points  into  space  with  his  finger. 

Where?     In  the  clouds? 

Higher. 

In  the  stars? 

Higher  still. 

In  the  ether? 

10 


No,  higher  yet,  far,  far  away.  You  can  not  see  it.  You 
have  to  take  my  word  for  it. 

And,  unfortunately,  so  many  of  us  take  his  word  far  it. 
And  upon  what  terms  will  the  priest  condescend  to  pilot  us  to 
our  invisible  and  aerial  mansions  ?  We  must  turn  over  to  him 
now,  our  all, — mind,  body  and  lands.  The  doctrine  of  a  world 
hastening  to  destruction,  while  it  has  demoralized  the  people, 
it  has  enriched  the  churches.  During  the  middle  ages,  and 
earlier,  and  also  in  more  recent  times,  more  than  once  the  cred- 
ulous public  has  been  scared  out  of  its  possessions  by  the 
preachers  of  calamity.  Jesus  can  not  very  well  clear  himself 
of  responsibility  for  this,  because,  it  was  he  who  tried  to  hurry 
the  people  out  of  a  world  soon  to  be  set  on  fire.  When  a 
young  man  asked  Jesus'  permission  to  go  and  bury  his  father, 
he  was  told  to  "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead."  This  was 
extraordinary  advice  to  a  son  who  wished  to  do  his  father  a 
last  service.  But  Jesus  was  consistent.  The  world  was  catch- 
ing fire  and  there  was  no  time  to  lose.  The  morality  of  Jesus 
was  the  morality  of  panic.  He  would  not  give  people  the  time 
to  think  of  anything  else  but  their  own  salvation  from  the  im- 
pending doom.  This  was  Bunyan's  interpretation  of  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  for  he  made  Christian,  the  hero  of  his  story, 
to  flee  at  once  from  the  city  of  destruction,  leaving  his  wife 
and  children,  his  neighbors  and  his  country  behind.  The 
morality  of  panic ! 

That  this  superstition  that  the  world  was  about  to  be  des- 
troyed influenced  the  whole  teaching  of  Jesus,  as  well  as  de- 
pressed his  spirits,  will  be  seen  by  an  examination  of  his  famous 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Matthew  and  Luke  give  somewhat 
different  reports  of  it.  It  is  likely  that  Luke's  is  the  less  em- 
bellished, and  therefore  more  representative  of  Jesus'  real  atti- 
tude toward  life.  In  the  third  Gospel,  Jesus  says,  "Blessed  are 
the  poor."  Matthew  gives  it  as,  "Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit."  If  the  first  document  had  the  latter  form,  it  is  not 
likely  that  a  later  copyist  would  drop  the  "in  spirit,"  but  if  the 
earlier  simply  read,  "Blessed  are  the  poor,"  a  later  writer  might 
find  it  convenient  and  necessary  even,  to  soften  it  by  adding  the 
words  "in  spirit."  In  Luke  there  is  nothing  said  about  hunger- 
ing after  righteousness,  it  is  merely,  "Blessed  are  ye,  that 
hunger  now :  for  ye  shall  be  filled."  The  drift  of  the  Sermon 
ii 


as  given  by  Luke,  which  in  all  probability  is  nearer  the  original 
than  that  given  by  Matthew,  and  which  is  at  any  rate  equally 
inspired,  is  to  wean  men  from  a  world  which- is  but  a  snare  and 
a  delusion,  and  to  get  them  to  cultivate  other-worldliness.  Let 
me  quote  a  few  of  the  beatitudes : 

"Blessed  be  ye  poor;  for  yours  is  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger  now;  for  ye  shall  be  filled.  Blessed 
are  ye  that  weep  now,  for  ye  shall  laugh — 

"Woe  unto  you  that  are  full;  for  ye  shall  hunger. 

"Woe  unto  you  that  laugh  now;  for  ye  shall  mourn  and 
weep."(l~) 

And  the  next  world  according  to  Jesus  was  not  really  a 
better  world,  but  the  reverse  of  this.  Some  are  hungry  now, 
some  are  full.  In  the  world  of  Jesus,  those  who  are  full  now, 
will  be  hungry,  and  those  who  are  hungry  now  will  be  full. 
Here  Lazarus  is  suffering,  and  Dives  is  in  comfort ;  there,  they 
will  change  places.  That  is  not  a  world  worth  looking  for- 
ward to.  It  is  not  even  a  new  world,  but  the  old  world  turned 
about  and  actually  made  much  worse.  The  suffering,  the 
misery,  the  pain,  in  the  world,  now,  are  at  least  temporary,  but 
there,  they  will  be  eternal.  Here,  the  rich  man,  at  least,  gives 
of  the  crumbs  of  his  table  to  Lazarus,  but  in  heaven  Lazarus 
refuses  even  a  drop  of  water  to  moisten  the  lips  of  Dives  in 
hell.  No  healthy  and  optimistic  soul  could  have  dreamed  so 
prosaic  a  dream.  The  future  is  a  place  of  revenge  according  to 
Jesus.  Such  a  future  as  he  describes,  with  thrones  for  his 
friends,  and  hell  everlasting  for  the  stranger,  would,  if  really 
accepted,  smite  humanity  with  the  worst  kind  of  pessimism. 
We  could  pardon  Jesus  for  wishing  the  destruction  of  this 
world,  if  he  only  offered  a  better  one  in  its  place. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  this  belief  in  a  vanishing  world  that  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  should  be  interpreted.  "If  any  one,"  says 
Jesus,  "take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  take  thy  cloak  also."  Of 
course.  Of  what  use  is  property  in  a  world  soon  to  be  set  on 
fire?  Besides,  according  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the 
way  to  have  property  in  heaven  is  not  to  have  any  here.  To 
Jesus,  the  world  was  like  a  tavern — good  only  for  a  night's 
lodging;  or  to  change  the  simile,  the  world  was  like  a  sinking 
ship  from  which,  to  save  ourselves,  everything  else  must  be 
(')  Luke,  VI  Chap. 

12 


thrown  overboard.  Who  would  care  to  accumulate  wealth, 
who  would  care  to  marry,  or  rear  children,  on  a  sinking  ship? 
Could  such  an  alarmist  be  a  sane  moral  teacher?  Yet,  Jesus 
must  have  been  sane  enough  to  realize  that  the  command  not 
to  resist  evil, — to  give  to  everyone  that  would  borrow ;  to  turn 
also  the  other  cheek  to  the  aggressor ;  and  to  let  the  robber 
bully  people  out  of  their  belongings, — would  upset  the  very 
foundations  of  human  society  and  create  a  chaos  -unspeak- 
ably injurious  to  the  moral  life ;  but  what  is  the  difference  if  we 
are  on  a  sinking  ship !  In  the  same  spirit,  Jesus  advises  his 
disciples  to  let  the  tares  grow  up  with  the  wheat.  It  is  not 
worth  while  trying  to  separate  them  now,  the  time  is  so  short. 
And  when  he  says  that  we  must  "hate  father,  mother,  and 
children  for  his  sake,"  he  means  that  to  escape  this  great,  this 
hastening  calamity  which  he  predicts,  would  be  better  for  us 
than  to  cultivate  the  affections  and  the  friendships  that  will 
soon  be  no  more.  It  is  really  impossible  for  anyone  believing 
in  a  heaven  to  be  quite  just  to  the  world  that  now  is.  The 
other  world  looks  so  important  to  the  believer  that  this  one 
becomes,  as  John  Wesley  expressed  it,  "A  fleeting  show." 

The  position  of  Jesus  on  the  important  question  of  mar- 
riage and  the  relation  of  the  sexes  is  also  to  be  studied  in  the 
light  of  the  belief  that  the  world  is  not  going  to  last  very  long. 

It  certainly  would  be  absurd  to  have  any  weddings,  as  it 
would  be  cruel  to  have  children,  or  to  accumulate  property,  or 
to  acquire  knowledge,  in  such  a  world.  Tolstoi,  in  his  Kreut- 
zer  Sonata,  which  is  a  terrible  story,  interprets  the  real  Chris- 
tian attitude  toward  marriage.  He  shows  conclusively  that  it  is 
inconsistent  for  a  follower  of  Jesus  to  marry.  Even  as  the 
believer  must  give  up  all  property,  he  must  also  give  up  the 
family.  If  he  is  single,  he  must  not  marry ;  if  he  is  married, 
he  must  live  as  though  he  was  not  married.  Tolstoi  proves 
his  contention  by  quoting  among  other  texts,  the  following 
from  Jesus :  "And  everyone  that  hath  forsaken  wife  or  chil- 
dren or  lands  for  my  name's  sake" — which  words  are  a  direct 
recommendation  to  forsake  kith  and  kin,  wife  and  husband, 
in  fact  everything.  To  be  a  Christian,  according  to  Count 
Tolstoi,  is  to  follow  the  example  of  Jesus  who  abstained  from 
marriage.  What  is  the  use  of  talking  about  divorce  when 
marriage  is  forbidden  ?  Jesus  said  that  Moses  allowed  divorce 
13 


because  of  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts;  and  marriage  is 
permitted,  according  to  Paul,  as  a  concession  to  human  weak- 
ness. The  Christian  ideal,  however,  is  celibacy.  Jesus  is  very 
positive  on  this  point.  You  will  not  blame  me  if  I  quote  his 
own  words,  just  as  I  find  them  in  the  New  Testament.  In 
the  gospel  of  Matthew,  chapter  nineteen,  verse  twelve,  Jesus 
speaks  of  three  kinds  of  eunuchs :  first,  those  who  were  born 
deformed;  second,  those  who  have  been  mutilated  by  men; 
and  third,  those  "who  have  made  themselves  eunuchs  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven's  sake."  This  is  an  invitation  to  all  who  can 
to  emasculate  themselves.  Is  not  this  pernicious  teaching? 
A  man  could  not  teach  such  a  doctrine  in  America  to-day 
without  laying  himself  open  to  the  contempt  of  his  fellows, 
but  when  preached  by  Jesus,  hypocrisy  and  cowardice  combine 
to  extol  it  as  divine  wisdom.  Fortunately,  such  teaching  is 
admired — not  obeyed.  That  is  as  far  as  hypocrisy  cares  to 
go.  It  is  owing  to  the  healthy  manhood  of  the  occidental 
nations  that  this  Asiatic  superstition  has  not  altogether  bank- 
rupted civilization.  In  the  early  centuries  many  of  the 
followers  of  Jesus  mutilated  their  bodies  "for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven's  sake."  There  is  in  Russia  a  sect  called  Skopskis,  with 
a  membership  of  six  thousand,  which  follows  the  practice  rec- 
ommended by  the  founder  of  Christianity. 

The  vows  of  poverty,  chastity  and  obedience,  lead  prac- 
tically to  self-destruction.  Poverty  is  helplessness,  or  nothing- 
ness; chastity  is  self-mortification;  obedience,  by  which  is 
meant,  absolute  surrender  of  the  will  to  another,  is  the  stamp- 
ing out  of  the  mind.  Goodness !  It  is  not  only  the  world  that 
Christianity  wishes  to  destroy,  but  also  man.  Annihilation — 
the  Buddhist  Nirvana,  seems  to  be  its  goal.  How  to  make  a 
man  a  mere  zero — poor,  emasculated,  and  a  mental  slave,  seems 
to  be  the  ideal  of  this  Asiatic  cult.  After  two  thousand  years 
of  modern  education,  such  is  the  hold  of  Jesus  upon  the  Chris- 
tian world,  that  in  our  churches  is  still  sung  the  hymn : 
"O,  to  be  nothing,  nothing!" 

With  this  doctrine  of  celibacy  in  view,  the  indifference  of 
Jesus  to  the  rights  of  women  as  human  beings  is  not  a  surprise. 
It  has  been  well  said  that  "those  who  trample  upon  manhood 
can  have  no  real  respect  for  woman."  Jesus  never  spoke  of 
God  except  as  a  father.  If  the  highest  principle  or  being  in 


the  universe  is  a  "he,"  of  course  woman  can  never  hope  to  be 
on  an  equality  with  man.  Motherhood  will  always  occupy  a 
secondary  place  as  long  as  the  father  is  a  god.  If  God  is  a 
father,  what  mother  can  be  on  an  equality  with  him?  He 
must  rule ;  she  must  obey.  Women  do  not  stop  to  think  that 
religion — Christianity,  Judaism,  Mohammedanism — is  the  most 
stubborn  obstacle  in  the  path  of  their  advancement.  Jesus 
ignored  women  in  all  the  essentials  of  life.  He  did  not  love 
any  one  of  them  sufficiently  to  share  his  life  with  her.  He 
had  no  place  for  the  love  of  woman  in  his  heart.  He  kept 
twelve  men  as  his  constant  companions.  Suppose  Jesus  had 
invited  some  gentle  and  devoted  woman  to  the  honor  of 
apostleship, — what  an  example  that  would  have  been !  But  he 
was  not  great  enough  to  rise  above  the  bigotry  of  his  age. 
Surely,  there  were  women  in  his  circle  of  acquaintance  better 
than  Judas  Iscariot,  who  sold  him  for  a  paltry  sum  of  money. 
Women  may  wait  upon  Jesus  at  the  table,  they  may  give 
birth  to  him,  and  nurse  him ;  they  may  fall  at  his  feet  to  bathe 
them  with  their  tears  and  wipe  them  with  their  tresses — but 
to  be  his  apostles — not  that.  Had  Jesus  been  really  a  great 
genius  he  would  have  understood  that  in  the  work  of  saving 
people,  the  co-operation  of  woman  is  indispensable.  There  are 
no  better  saviors  than  women.  How  many  a  husband  has  been 
saved  from  drink — from  the  gutter  even,  by  his  wife.  How 
many  sons  have  been  shielded  from  a  prodigal's  fate  by  a 
mother's  all-conquering  devotion.  Yet  for  this  splendid  force 
or  agency  of  reform,  Jesus  had  no  appreciation  whatever. 

If  I  were  hanged  on  the  highest  hill 

Mother  o'  mine; 
I  know  whose  love  would  follow  me  still 

Mother  o'  mine. 

Jesus  failed  to  see  in  woman  that  which  inspires  the  poet, 
the  painter,  the  hero,  to  do  their  best.  He  took  the  Asiatic 
view  of  woman.  "Can  man  be  free,"  sang  Shelley,  "if  woman 
be  a  slave?"  Suppose  Jesus  had  said  that! 

The  bible  is  on  the  whole  very  unfair  to  woman.  This  is 
a  sign  of  its  inferior  morality.  It  is  the  bully  who  takes  ad- 
vantage of  the  physically  weak.  When,  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  God  is  about  to  punish  the  first  couple  for  their  dis- 
obedience, he  is  much  less  considerate  of  the  woman  than  he  is 
of  the  man.  "In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread," 
IS 


is  the  curse  for  Adam.  That  was  not  a  curse  at  all.  Labor 
is  not  only  honorable,  it  is  also  pleasureable.  Many  work 
who  do  not  have  to — they  work,  not  from  pressure,  but  from 
pleasure.  Many  who  retire  from  business  do  so  with  regret. 
It  is  indolence  that  is  a  curse.  The  divine  curse  against  the 
serpent  is  even  milder.  He  is  told  to  walk  upon  his  belly  for 
the  rest  of  his  life — a  change  of  locomotion  was  his  punish- 
ment. But  when  Jehovah  curses  the  woman,  he  shows, — I 
was  going  to  say, — the  effect  of  his  Asiatic  training.  "Unto 
the  woman  he  said,  I  will  greatly  multiply  thy  sorrow  and  thy 
conception ;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  bring  forth  children ;  and 
thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule  over 

thee/'O) 

"I  will  greatly  multiply  thy  sorrow."  And  why?  Is  it 
because  she  is  stronger  and  can  therefore  endure  more  suffer- 
ing than  the  man?  Why  should  she  be  struck  a  heavier  and 
a  more  crushing  blow  ?  And  observe  that  she  is  cursed  in  the 
act  which  constitutes  the  greatest  and  most  heroic  service  a 
woman  renders  to  the  human  race, — the  giving  birth  to  child- 
ren. The  pain  of  child-bearing  is  to  be  henceforth,  says  the 
deity,  very  much  more  painful.  Well  may  we  blush  for  Je- 
hovah. If  there  is  a  divine  moment  in  human  life,  it  is  when 
a  woman  becomes  a  mother.  All  the  tenderness,  the  love,  the 
gentleness,  the  devotion,  the  sweetness,  and  the  compassion,  of 
which  we  are  capable,  will  not  be  enough  to  outweigh  the 
suffering  a  woman  endures  to  give  life  and  light  to  a  new  being. 
And  think  of  choosing  this  delicate  and  helpless  moment  to 
strike  at  her!  And  this  is  the  being  who  has  sent  his  son  to 
save  us!  But  who  shall  save  Jehovah? 

"And  thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule 
over  thee."  At  the  threshold  of  life  she  is  sold  into  slavery. 
She  is  not  given  to  Adam — to  share  with  him  the  dignity  of 
humanity,  the  duties  and  rights  of  life, — but  to  be  his  creature. 
Suppose  Jehovah  had  said:  "A  woman  is  as  much  a  human 
being  as  a  man,  and  because  of  her  physical  weakness,  I  shall 
charge  myself  to  be  her  special  protector  and  friend  until  man 
shall  have  advanced  sufficiently  in  culture  and  civilization  to  do 
full  justice  to  her."  Ah,  if  Jehovah  had  only  said  that!  In 
the  Episcopal  and  Catholic  marriage  services,  to  this  day,  the 

(')  Genesis  III:i6. 

16 


wife  is  asked  to  promise  to  obey  her  husband.  And  this  is 
the  religion  that  pretends  to  be  just  and  impartial  to  women. 
From  the  silence  of  Jesus  on  this  subject,  in  a  country  and  at 
a  time  when  woman's  condition  was  deplorable,  and  where  the 
curse  with  which  she  had  been  cursed  had  really  taken  effect, — 
as  well  as  from  the  few  words  he  said  about  marriage, — Jesus 
shows  his  utter  incapacity  to  tear  himself  from  his  Asiatic 
environment,  or  to  rise  to  the  nobler  ideals  of  an  -advancing 
civilization. 

Again,  in  the  light  of  his  belief  in  a  world  soon  to  dis- 
appear, it  becomes  clear  why  Jesus  ignored  such  subjects,  for 
instance,  as  education,  art  and  politics.  There  is  not  a  word 
in  all  the  sayings  and  sermons  of  Jesus  about  schools,  or  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  of  nature  and  its  laws.  He  does 
not  devote  a  single  thought  to  the  education  of  children.  Not 
once  does  he  denounce  ignorance,  which  is  the  mother  of  all 
abominations.  In  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  ignorance  was  the 
most  abundant  as  well  as  the  worst  crop  his  own  country  raised. 
And  yet,  Jesus  had  absolutely  nothing  to  say  against  it.  It 
would  take  time  to  conquer  knowledge,  and  the  time  was  too 
short.  Moreover,  in  the  world  to  come,  such  knowledge  would 
be  superfluous.  What  wisdom  the  believers  needed  would  be 
given  to  them  miraculously,  even  as  God  rained  down  manna  in 
the  desert  to  the  children  of  Israel.  This  idea  that  everything, 
even  our  daily  bread,  is  given  to  us,  not  acquired  by  us,  ex- 
plains also  why  Jesus  ignored  the  subject  of  labor — the  great 
transformer  that  transforms  the  world's  waste  places  into  gar- 
dens and  its  swamps  into  flourishing  cities.  "Consider  the  lilies 
of  the  fields,"  argues  Jesus,  with  a  suggestion  of  poetry  in  his 
usually  severe  and  solemn  speech, — "they  toil  «ot,  neither  do 
they  spin," — from  which  it  is  to  be  inferred  that,  if  the  lilies 
can  be  so  fair  and  flourishing  without  toil  or  labor,  so  can  man, 
if  he  will  only  put  his  trust  in  God. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  this 
world  when  it  has  been  burned  down  to  ashes,  is  not  an  evolu- 
tion, or  a  growth  out  of  present  conditions,  but  it  is  a  totally 
different  order,  and  is  to  be  introduced  suddenly  and  by 
miracle.  This  idea  makes  human  labor  unnecessary.  Hence, 
the  advice  of  Paul  to  the  slave,  not  to  seek  his  freedom, 
and  that  of  Jesus,  to  let  the  tares  grow  up  with  the  wheat.  It 


is  not  by  any  effort  on  our  part ;  it  is  not  by  human  science  or 
labor,  but  by  magic,  that  is  to  say,  by  some  unknown,  myster- 
ious and  sudden  manner — like  the  thief  at  night,  that  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  to  come. 

Little  things  as  well  as  great  issues,  Jesus  would  have  us 
leave  to  providence.  Therefore  his  warning :  Take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow.  In  other  words  labor  is  necessary  for  those 
people  only  who  have  no  Father  in  heaven  who  takes  notice 
of  even  the  falling  sparrow.  But  the  believer  has  only  to 
cast  his  net  into  the  sea  and  fishes  with  pearls  in  their  mouths 
will  help  him  pay  for  his  wants.  Faith  will  not  only  move 
mountains,  but  it  can  make  a  single  loaf  of  bread  to  satisfy 
the  hunger  of  thousands.  In  fact,  a  miracle-worker  like 
Jesus  could  not  consistently  recommend  labor,  which  means 
application  of  means  to  ends.  Jesus  was  a  magician.  Morality 
is  a  Science. 

But  let  us  now  consider  Jesus'  answers  to  special  problems 
presented  to  him  by  many  of  his  hearers  for  solution.  You 
know  the  story  of  the  rich  young  man  who  came  to  Jesus  to 
ask  him  the  way  to  eternal  life.  "Keep  the  ten  command- 
ments," Jesus  told  him.  But  when  the  youth  answered  that  he 
was  already  doing  that,  Jesus  said,  "If  thou  wilt  be  perfect, 
sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  give  it  to  the  poor  and  thou  shalt  have 
treasure  in  heaven."  I  am  not  surprised  that  the  young  man 
went  away  disappointed.  What  is  there  in  poverty  to  entitle 
a  man  to  eternal  life  ?  Is  it  not  a  perverse  doctrine  that  asso- 
ciates beggary  with  moral  perfection  ?  Why  should  the  mendi- 
cant be  the  pet  of  heaven.  If  you  give  all  that  you  have  to  the 
poor,  you  will  have  to  depend  upon  charity  for  your  living, — or 
starve.  And  where  will  the  charity  come  from,  if  all  men  were 
to  follow  the  advice  of  Jesus  and  cultivate  poverty?  But 
wealth  means  life,  it  means  enjoyment  of  the  world  and  ex- 
uberance of  spirits,  which  things  Jesus  dreads.  Poverty  means 
lassitude,  asceticism,  low  vitality,  prostration  and  weariness 
of  life, — which  things  Jesus  considered  essential  to  the  des- 
truction of  the  world,  which  he  hoped  for.  It  is  only  for  this 
world,  however,  that  Jesus  believes  in  poverty.  In  the  next, 
his  followers  will  receive  a  hundred-fold  for  every  sacrifice 
made.  They  will  be  given  thrones,  crowns,  jeweled  streets  to 
walk  in — and  mansions  of  pure  gold  in  which  they  will  drink 
18 


of  the  fruit  of  the  vine.  Heaven,  in  the  opinion  of  Jesus,  is  like 
a  bank  which  pays  ten  thousand  per  cent  for  every  privation 
suffered  in  this  world.  The  most  pronounced  commercialism 
even  is  not  so  extravagant  as  that.  The  heaven  of  Jesus  is 
more  materialistic  than  this  world. 

It  is  often  claimed  that  this  doctrine  of  Jesus  was  a  great 
comfort  to  the  unfortunate,  who  were  given  something  to  look 
forward  to.  If  they  were  poor,  here,  they  could  hope  to  be 
rich  there.  It  is  true  to  a  great  extent  that  Christianity  won 
its  way  into  the  hearts  of  the  masses  by  flattering  them. 
"Unto  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached,"  said  Jesus.  And 
what  was  its  message  to  them? — You  have  lost  this  world, 
but  the  next  will  be  yours.  In  my  opinion  this  promise,  while 
it  sounds  big,  is  a  very  empty  one.  It  taught  the  poor  to  submit 
to  oppression,  instead  of  inspiring  them  to  rebellion  against 
injustice.  Jesus  did  not  tell  the  truth  when  he  said  that  pov- 
erty, hunger,  ignorance,  misery,  were  blessed. 

You  are  also  familiar  with  the  story  of  the  men  who  came 
to  Jesus  to  ask  him  whether  they  should  pay  tribute  to  Caesar  ? 
Instead  of  giving  to  this  question  a  direct  answer,  Jesus  re- 
sorts to  quibbling — He  asks  for  a  coin,  and  when  one  is 
presented,  "Whose  is  the  superscription,"  he  asks.  "Caesar's," 
is  the  answer.  "Render  unto  Caesar  that  which  is  Caesar's," 
commands  Jesus.  But  one  moment:  Is  a  coin  Caesar's  be- 
cause his  superscription  is  upon  it  ?  Is  it  not  rather  the 
property  of  the  man  who  has  earned  it  by  his  labor?  Shall 
Caesar  claim  everything  that  he  can  put  his  stamp  upon? 
Was  hot  Jesus  recommending  the  blind  worship  of  force  when 
he  told  them  to  respect  Caesar's  name?  Suppose,  instead  of 
evading  the  question,  or  attempting  a  smart  answer  to  it, 
Jesus  had  calmly  and  clearly  explained  to  them  that  no  govern- 
ment, be  it  human  or  divine,  is  just,  which  is  not  based  upon  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  Ah,  if  Jesus  had  only  said  that. 

But  he  also  teljs  us  to  "Give  unto  God  the  things  that 
belong  to  God."  God  and  Caesar!  Behold  the  two  masters, 
from  neither  of  which  did  Jesus  deliver  man.  And  how  do 
we  give  unto  God  the  things  that  belong  to  God?  If  we  give 
it  to  the  priests,  will  it  reach  God — and  how  much  of  it  will 
reach  him?  Moreover,  if  we  are  to  tell  the  things  that  belong 
to  Caesar  by  the  stamp  upon  them,  how  are  we  to  tell  the 
19 


t 

things  that  belong  to  God?  And  how  did  the  deity  come  to 
let  Caesar  in  as  a  partner?  And  what  will  there  be  left  for 
us  after  God  and  Caesar  have  had  each  his  share  ?  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  how  the  robust  occidental  can  find  any  moral 
uplift  or  guidance  in  so  whimsical  a  piece  of  advice.  Jesus 
was  asked  a  great  question,  the  question  of  political  autonomy 
and  international  law,  but  he  gave  to  it  a  trifling  answer. 

Let  us  take  another  example.  I  have  more  than  once 
called  your  attention  to  the  story  of  the  thief  on  the  cross. 
There  were  really  two  of  them.  To  one  of  them  Jesus  prom- 
ised paradise.  What  became  of  the  other?  Both  men  were 
malefactors,  but  one  of  them  believed  in  Jesus  and  became  a 
saint  at  the  last  moment.  Can  anything  be  more  immoral? 
Can  anything  be  more  arbitrary  or  fatalistic?  If  we  wished 
to  show  that  it  made  no  difference  how  people  lived,  and  that 
the  only  thing  that  saves  is  faith,  which  is  as  effective  at  the 
eleventh  hour  as  at  the  first — we  could  not  have  invented 
a  better  argument  than  is  furnished  by  this  story  in  the  gospels. 

Observe  that  the  man  magically  saved,  as  this  malefactor 
was,  becomes  meaner  and  more  selfish  after  he  is  converted 
than  he  was  before.  He  imagines  that  God  is  just  waiting 
yonder  to  welcome  him,  and  that  heaven  is  being  put  in  order 
for  his  reception, — while  his  crime  sinks  into  a  mere  nothing 
in  his  eyes.  Like  the  thief  on  the  cross,  he  has  not  a  single 
thought  of  his  victims — not  a  single  pang  of  remorse  for  the 
suffering  he  has  caused.  Conversion  has  made  him  callous. 
Whether  his  victims  are  saved  or  damned,  he  does  not  care. 
All  his  thoughts  are  centered  upon  his  own  future  happiness 
and  glory.  But  suppose  the  thief  on  the  cross  had  said  to 
Jesus  when  the  latter  invited  him  to  paradise:  "But,  what 
about  my  victims,  Lord?  The  men  and  women  and  children 
I  have  ruined  and  sent  to  their  doom !  How  can  I  be  happy 
in  heaven,  with  my  victims  in  hell — to  whom  I  gave  no  chance 
in  the  last  hour  to  believe  and  be  saved?  Hanging  on  the  same 
cross  with  you,  Lord,  has  made  my  heart  a  little  more  tender, 
and  has  awakened  my  conscience.  I  have  become  a  better  man 
since  I  met  you.  Let  me  then  go  where  I  can  atone  in  some 
real  way  for  my  crimes.  Let  my  heaven  consist  in  serving 
the  people  I  have  wronged,  until  we  can  be  saved  together." 

20 


If  Jesus  had  only  provoked  that  for  a  reply  from  the  con- 
verted thief!  , 

Compare  with  this  puffed-up  vanity  and  meanness  of  the 
malefactor  converted  by  miracle,  the  glorious  behavior  of 
Othello  in  the  presence  of  death.  Jesus'  company  made  the 
thief  on  the  cross  contemptible ;  Shakespeare's  touch  made 
Othello  divine.  As  he  is  about  to  leap  into  the  arms  of  death, 
Othello  is  not  thinking  of  his  soul,  or  of  his  future;  his  one 
and  only  thought  is  of  his  victim.  He  does  not  whine  in  the 
ears  of  heaven,  nor  does  he  beg  to  be  saved  from  the  punish- 
ment he  deserves.  He  is  no  coward  trying  to  sneak  into 
heaven  while  his  Desdemona  lies  in  her  blood  at  his  feet. 
Listen  to  the  words  the  great  poet  speaks  by  his  mouth : 

Whip  me,  ye  devils, 

From  the  possession  of  this  heavenly  sight ! 
Blow  me  about  in  winds !    Roast  me  in  sulphur ! 
Wash  me  in  steep-down  gulfs  of  liquid  fire ! 

No  vision  of  heaven,  no  thought  of  glory  for  himself,  can  tempt 
Othello  to  forget  his  crime.  He  prefers  hell  for  himself  as 
the  only  thing  with  which  his  awakened  conscience  can  be 
calmed.  That  is  the  way  to  be  converted! 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  forgiveness  is  the  doctrine  of 
license.  Jesus  commands  us  to  forgive  "seventy  times  seven." 
He  does  not  seem  to  realize  that  the  more  accommodating  we 
are  to  the  criminal,  the  more  we  sap  the  foundations  of  moral- 
ity. "Judge  not,"  says  Jesus,  "that  ye  be  not  judged."  That 
is  very  queer  advice.  We  are  not  to  see  wrong  or  crime  in 
others  lest  they  should  find  the  same  in  us.  It  is  the  religion 
of  a  guilty  conscience — which  abstains  from  criticising  lest 
his  own  faults  should  be  exposed.  "You  say  nothing  about 
me  and  I'll  agree  to  say  nothing  about  you,"  is  a  conspiracy 
to  defeat  justice.  "For  with  what  judgment  ye  judge  ye 
shall  be  judged,"  continues  Jesus.  Not  at  all.  If  a  man  has 
slandered  you,  must  you  slander  him?  If  you  have  been 
robbed,  must  you  rob  in  return?  Do  you  have  to  judge  an- 
other with  the  same  prejudice,  bigotry  and  malice  with  which 
he  judges  you?  And  must  you  refrain  from  passing  any 
righteous  judgments  from  fear  of  being  misjudged  or  mis- 
understood by  the  world?  Were  we  to  follow  this  false 
teaching,  we  would  be  giving  crime  a  free  sway, — with  every 
tongue  tied  against  it. 

21 


But  did  not  Jesus  say  "Love  one  another,"  and  is  not  that 
enough?  If  it  were  enough,  the  past  twenty  centuries  would 
have  been  centuries  of  peace  and  brotherhood.  Instead,  they 
have  been  centuries  of  war  and  persecution.  The  world  is  in 
need  of  a  Jesus  who  can  make  people  love.  If  Jesus  has 
this  power — why  is  Europe  still  armed  to  the  teeth?  I  do 
not  deny  the  good  intentions  of  Jesus.  I  question  his  power. 
He  has  not  even  succeeded  in  making  his  own  followers, 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  to  love  one  another.  Christianity 
has  had  a  good,  long  chance  to  show  results.  A  religion 
which  is  split  up  into  an  ever-increasing  number  of  sects  is 
not  going  to  bring  about  unity  and  brotherhood.  "He  that 
believeth  not  shall  be  damned,"  and  "depart  from  me  ye 
cursed,"  takes  from  the  rose  of  love  both  petals  and  perfume, 
and  leaves  only  the  thorns. 

But  Jesus  also  said  "Love  your  enemies."  The  advice 
of  Confucius  to  "love  our  benefactors  and  to  be  just  to  our 
enemies,"  is  more  sensible.  It  is  neither  practical  nor  desir- 
able to  love  one's  enemies.  Can  we  love  the  slanderer,  the 
oppressor,  the  murderer?  If  our  "enemy"  is  not  all  this,  he 
is  not  an  enemy.  But  we  can  be  just  to  the  people  who  are 
mean,  deceitful,  spiteful  or  pitiless  toward  us.  Did  Jesus  love 
his  enemies?  Why  then  was  not  Judas  saved?  And  why 
did  he  say  to  his  disciples  that  for  the  people  who  rejected 
them  there  awaited  the  awful  fate  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah? 

But  did  not  Jesus  pray  for  his  murderers  on  the  cross? 
Was  his  prayer  answered?  If  there  is  any  truth  in  history, 
the  Jews  have  suffered  for  their  supposed  participation  in 
the  tragedy  of  Calvary  more  than  words  can  describe.  I 
have  always  thought  that  the  prayer,  "Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do,"  was  put  in  Jesus'  mouth, 
at  the  last  moment,  for  a  theatrical  effect.  If  the  atonement 
was  one  of  the  eternal  decrees  of  God,  the  people  who  put 
Jesus  to  death  were  only  carrying  it  out.  If,  however,  know- 
ing that  Jesus  was  a  God,  they,  nevertheless,  wanted  to  kill 
him,  they  must  have  been  imbeciles  to  suppose  a  God  could 
be  murdered  safely;  but  if  they  did  not  know  the  truth  and 
committed  the  crime  ignorantly,  they  were  not  forgiven  for 
it,  and  the  bible  describes  the  fearful  punishment  prepared 
for  them. 

22 


Another  much  commended  saying  of  Jesus  is  the  following : 
"Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least  of  these,  ye  have 
done  it  unto  me."  This  has  been  interpreted  as  a  command 
to  help  and  succor  even  the  poorest  of  the  poor.  I  admire 
the  thought.  I  applaud  the  generosity.  But  would  it  not 
have  been  grander,  if  Jesus,  instead  of  saying,  "ye  have  done 
it  unto  me,"  had  said,  "ye  have  done  it  unto  Humanity." 
"For  my  sake"  is  not  so  large  and  noble  as  "for  Humanity's 
sake."  One  of  my  neighbor  preachers  said  the  other  day 
that  he  loved  the  poor  and  the  lost  "because  Jesus  loved  them." 
Then,  it  was  Jesus  he  loved,  and  not  his  fellows.  Evidently 
he  would  not  love  them,  if  Jesus  did  not.  What  would  become 
of  this  preacher's  interest  in  his  fellowmen,  should  he  ever 
lose  his  faith  in  Christ?  That  explains  why  people  often 
say  that  without  religion  there  can  be  no  morality.  We  de- 
sire a  morality  that  can  outlive  all  the  gods.  Christ  or  no 
Christ, — can  we  still  be  kind  and  just  and  compassionate 
toward  the  weak  and  the  unfortunate? 

"If  you  take  Jesus  Christ  out  of  the  world,  the  world's  a 
carcass,  and  man's  a  disaster,"  cries  the  preacher  at  the  top  of 
his  voice.  Of  course.  If  everything  is  to  be  done  for  Jesus' 
sake,  what  will  become  of  morality,  civilization  or  humanity 
with  Jesus  dropped  out?  We  need  no  better  excuse  for 
summoning  all  our  energies  to  combat  a  religion  that  commits 
the  destinies  of  our  world  to  the  keeping  of  one  man, — and 
he,  in  all  probability, — a  myth^1) 

Let  us  recapitulate :  Jesus  taught  a  magical,  not  a  scientific 
morality.  It  was  by  being  born  of  "water  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  whatever  that  might  mean,  and  not  by  intellectual  and 
moral  effort,  that  people  were  to  be  saved.  He  placed  the 
creed  above  the  deed,  and  himself  above  humanity.  "Believe 
in  me,  do  good  for  my  sake,"  gives  to  morality  a  sectarian 
stamp,  or  faint,  which  is  bound  to  corrupt  it.  Morality  is 
born  of  liberty.  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  absolutism,  in 
which  Jesus  or  God  is  everything,  and  man  a  mere  puppet. 
Christianity  denies  to  man  the  right  to  reason.  He  must  only 
obey.  There  is  no  morality  where  there  is  no  liberty.  By  his 
doctrine  of  an  impending  catastrophe,  a  future  hell,  and  by  his 
promises  of  fabulous  wealth  and  glory  beyond — Jesus  helped 
to  disturb  and  distort  the  judgment  of  the  weak  and  the  fear- 

23 


ful,  preventing  thereby  the  cultivation  of  sane  thoughts  of  life. 
The  morality  of  Jesus  was  the  morality  of  panic. 

And  what  do  we  offer  in  place  of  supernaturalism,  whether 
it  be  Christianity,  Judaism,  Mohammedanism,  Brahmanism, 
or  any  other  "ism"?  In  place  of  magic  or  miracle,  we  offer 
science;  in  place  of  "belief,"  we  offer  knowledge — the  open 
light  of  day  and  the  unhampered  interchange  of  human  love 
and  thought.  In  place  of  Christ  or  God — both  absent,  and 
neither  dependent  upon  anything  we  can  do  for  him — we  offer 
Humanity,  forever  at  our  side,  and  in  daily  need  of  our 
bravest  service  and  most  unstinted  love. 

O  Read  the  author's  The  Truth  About  Jesus— Is  He  a  Myth? 


THE  STORY  OF  MY  MIND 

OR 

HOW  I  BECAME  A  RATIONALIST 

Price,  Fifty  Cents 


•I  In  this  latest  publication  of  the  Independent  Religious 
Society,  M.  M.  Mangasarian  describes  his  religious  Experience— 
how,  starting  as  a  Calvinist,  a  graduate  of  Princeton  Theolog- 
ical Seminary,  and  a  pastor  of  the  Spring  Garden  Presbyterian 
Church  in  Philadelphia,  he  thought  and  fought  his  way  up  to 

RATIONALISM 

fl  The  book  contains  a  dedication  to  "My  Children,"  in 
which  the  author  says  :  f 

"  I  am  going  to  put  the  story  in  writing,  that  you  may  have  it  with 
you  when  I  am  gone,  to  remind  you  of  the  aims  and  interests  for  which 
I  lived,  as  well  as  to  acquaint  you  with  the  most  earnest  and  intimate 
period  in  my  career  as  a  teacher  of  men." 


ORDER    THROUGH 

THE  INDEPENDENT  RELIGIOUS  SOCIETY 

ORCHESTRA    HALL    BUILDING.    CHICAGO 


24 


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